Lindell was accused of defaming Eric Coomer, the former director of product security and strategy for Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems; Lindell's streaming platform, FrankSpeech, was also accused of defamation for broadcasting Oltmann himself repeating election-denial claims in two instances — neither of which the jury found to be defamation.
Oltmann, whose podcast is called Untamed, is the Castle Rock-based businessman whose account of infiltrating a September 2020 "antifa" Zoom call and hearing a man he claims was Coomer insist that Trump wouldn't win the election, "I made fucking sure of that," is the basis of a slew of lawsuits by Coomer against entities like Lindell and MyPillow, the Trump 2020 presidential campaign, and nearly two dozen others, including Oltmann himself (he's a codefendant with the Trump campaign).
Then, in proceedings for a related lawsuit against an Oklahoma defendant who platformed Oltmann's claims that Coomer was instrumental in rigging the 2020 election, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $1,000-per-day sanction against Oltmann for absconding from a deposition, after which he returned home and recorded a podcast insulting the judge.
The month ended with another defendant in a Coomer lawsuit, Salem Media, which owns local conservative radio station KNUS, issuing a retraction over Oltmann's statements about the antifa call.
"Following the 2020 presidential election, several on-air hosts associated with Salem Media Group Inc. and Salem Media of Colorado, Inc. interviewed Joseph Oltmann concerning allegations of voter fraud related to the election," that retraction begins. "In reliance on statements made by Mr. Oltmann, the on-air hosts published stories that Eric Coomer, PhD, the former Director of Strategy and Security of Dominion Voting Systems, interfered with the 2020 presidential election and confessed to doing so on a call prior to the election. Mr. Oltmann has since produced no evidence beyond his sworn statement that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software or that Dr. Coomer claimed to have done so. Nor has Mr. Oltmann produced any evidence beyond his sworn statement that Dr. Coomer participated in a conversation with members of 'Antifa.' Salem apologizes for the harm these publications caused Dr. Coomer and his family."
Oltmann remains unfazed by these recent events, however. On a visit to his broadcast studio in Centennial — in a complex populated by his various business concerns, which also include a firearms retailer and a data management company — Westword asks if the statement from Salem foreshadows an impending settlement in Coomer's case against Salem.
"I don't think so. There's a legal term called res judicata, and that means 'it's been decided,'" he says, noting that the jury in the Lindell case, during which Oltmann stood by his antifa call claims against Coomer, "found what I said to be both truthful and credible. I think that's the part that all the news outlets kind of skipped past."
Oltmann is basing this response on the verdict forms filled out by the Lindell jury. Coomer's claim against Lindell was based on ten statements either made by Lindell himself or by others, including Oltmann, on Lindell's FrankSpeech platform. The jurors did not find any statements made by Oltmann while being interviewed by others on those shows to be defamatory.
"You could say, well, they didn't say [my claims] were credible. No, they found that it was not defamatory, and if it's not defamatory, it's credible," he explains.
Despite what looks on its face like a series of setbacks for Oltmann, he's juiced for the legal travails ahead. "As far as my trial, [Coomer is] in big trouble," Oltmann says. "I need my day in court. I want my day in court. You can't unring the bells that happened in the Mike Lindell case."
Oltmann has been a vocal critic of Israel's war in Gaza and its twelve-day U.S.-assisted war with Iran.
Jorge Paredes / Untamed
Oltmann's broadcast style is brash and often accusatory, similar to his posts on X. On the podcast in late 2021, he called for the execution of elected "traitors," and made a lynching reference about Governor Jared Polis. During the Lindell trial, he posted on X that Judge Nina Y. Wang is a "paid Communist operative" and an "autopen radical judge." He's prone to calling enemies fat and gay, as well as accusing gays of grooming children.
But throughout ninety minutes of being challenged on many of his assertions, Oltmann — who characterizes this news outlet as "a pretty left publication" — displays a friendly, it's-okay-if-we-disagree manner. And similar to the first time he was interviewed by Westword in January, he says he doesn't want to represent conservatism or the Republican Party; he believes we're all being screwed by our governmental and judicial systems. "We have to start healing," he adds.
"I don't want to wear a football jersey," he says, referring to the Republican-Democrat war games on display in government. "It should be different than what it is right now. I don't even know what it is right now that we have, because a lot of my Democrat friends don't think the Democrats are sane. And a lot of my Republican friends — the deportation, I think, it's absolutely wrong. You think we can get rid of 20 million people in this country? I had people screaming at me over that."
Oltmann has also been a vocal critic of Israel's war in Gaza and its twelve-day U.S.-assisted war with Iran. "Why do I have to align with left or right? It doesn't make sense to me," he says.
He offers several personal stories to illuminate his viewpoints, including that his brother was killed by a police officer in a car chase in Washington, D.C., that his dad is Black and, in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder, Oltmann was not on the side of the police. He says he plays football with gang members every Saturday, and has lost big business deals because he rejected racism — "kindly told them to fuck off," he puts it. "I think I'm pretty well connected in all the different communities. I've started football leagues and I've done all sorts of stuff to help the inner city community."
He continues, "The thing that defines me in my life is I've always gone for what's right and not necessarily what's popular. I didn't want to get involved in the election. I did not want to get involved."
But now he is, and Oltmann gets fiery when he talks about the threats he and his family have suffered since he became a public face of the rigged-2020-election theory; he believes those threats only underline the authenticity of his assertions about Coomer. "You don't cut the tongue out of the guy that's telling the lie; you cut the tongue out of the guy that's telling the truth," he says.
Coomer's lawsuit against Oltmann and the Trump 2020 campaign is expected to go to trial next April, but for now Oltmann insists he's at peace, and fed up with politics. "I'm in a peaceful place like I've never been before, but I'm never going to let anybody take from me what's not theirs. They're not going to take away my voice, and they're not going to take away my passion," he says.
Instead, Oltmann says he's going to focus on his community, "I'm going to go back to serving kids, taking care of getting men to do what they need to do. I'm going to coach again. I'm going to do a lot of different things that I used to do, and I'm going to run away from politics."
